SEX-COMMERCE AND THE ELIXER OF LIFE

I believe that sex runs through all life, animal and vegetable - perhaps through the inorganic world also. And that the sexes are cannibals, feeding on each other - the sexes are food to each other.

I believe that both sexes are in the simplest uni-cell. That, afterwards, as life evolves, there is a tendency to a division of labor - to separate the sexes into two persons, but that always the two sexes are more or less in one - always the male is part female, the female part male in varying degrees of more or less.

I believe that the processes of life require as an essential a frequent, if not constant, interchange of maleness with femaleness. I believe this takes place within the organism constantly and in proportion to its perfection there is beauty and health. In every cell there is this interchange, and between different cells of the organism there is such an exchange.

But just as in-and-in breeding finally "runs out" the strain, and leads to deterioration, so in-and-in exchange of maleness and femaleness - really the same thing - leads to deterioration at last, though many things may assist to delay and postpone the process - change in nourishment, in environment, etc.

Therefore the maleness of one person needs exchange with the femaleness of some other person; the femaleness of one with the maleness of another.

Homosexuality bases partly on the fact that this exchange may be effected, with more or less satisfaction, sometimes, with persons of the same sex (who, as both sexes are in one, are more or less persons of the opposite sex also) but this too is a form of in-and-in exchange, therefore the normal and best exchange is with persons whose sex is visibly and predominantly opposite to one's own. Man normally goes to woman, woman to man. And even here very opposite temperaments are usually preferred, the smooth by the hairy, the red-headed by the black-haired, the fat, by the lean, etc., because these have existed under very different environments, have fed on different nourishment, which they exchange through sex, and, so still further put away in-and-in exchange and complement

each other's lacks - Nature always seeking an equilibrium and redistribution of elements in alternation.

This exchange and mutual feeding can be effected in any way in which the sexes can come into each other's aura, but it is most easily effected by touch, and most perfectly by the complete union of Karezza. The sexual orgasm having an entirely different purpose, that is, not the nourishment of the two individuals concerned, but the transmission of life and nourishment to another, a new and third organism starting from these two, tends rather to defeat and prevent the nourishment of the two, and is normally limited, usually, to propagation. To indulge in the orgasm frequently, as a mere pleasure and indulgence, is to create a vice - salacity.

I do not pretend to know what this sexual food is. We may theorise that it is a "flux of electrons," a "current of corpuscles," "hormones," or what not - who knows? - but its effects we may see. The thrill, the vigor, the brilliancy, the glow of lovers; the "illusion," the "glamour," the "romance" of love we all know. This means swift exchange and joyous feasting. Suppose we call this food the Elixir of Life?

But the mere suggestion of this sexual exchange seems to marvelously quicken and benefit even the inward in-and-in exchanges. Thus reading a love letter, or a love story, handling a keepsake, thinking of a lover, and a thousand other such things, may benefit the whole being by sex suggestion.

There are those who claim that the cells of the animal organism go to seed and that each one of these little molecules, or corpuscles, go to the ova or spermatozoa to represent that cell in the new organism to be formed by reproduction, so that the essence of everything in the parent organism may be in the offspring. And there are Karezza-ites who explain the thrill and exhilaration of Karezza by claiming that during its exercise these vital seed-elements, not being thrown off by an orgasm, are thrown, instead, into the circulation again and become a nerve food and cell-elixir; perhaps leading to the return to the germ or sperm of new seed-elements more vivified and electric than before. And that this explains why the mere auto-suggestion

of love, above alluded to, if intense enough, by somewhat the same process, seems to vitalize like Karezza.

This may not ultimately prove scientific, but I am inclined to accept it and reconcile it with the preceding - to believe that love is a process of self-feeding and redistribution of elements within the organism as well as of mutual feeding and exchange between lovers.

And I believe that all human love that naturally seeks expression in embracing is, at least largely, moved by and based upon this human need of vital exchange and sexual rejuvenation.

Moreover, morally, we need to recognize that this desire of the sexes for hugging, kissing, caressing, contact, closeness and the most pressing and intimate touch, is not vicious or suspicious, but a physiological, a food desire. One needs meats of sexual touch, just as one needs meals of food, only not so often. The fullest life cannot be lived without them. However, there can be sexual gluttony, just as there can be food gluttony. And there can be foul, poisonous, unhealthy sexual touches and contacts, just as there can be poisonous, foul, unhealthy viands. Intelligence, selection, self-control, refinement, hygienic wisdom and education, and a sensitive conscience, are needed with both. But neither should be regarded from the attitude of prejudice or mere sentiment, or convention, but from that of science, common sense and the ideal.